Tips of the trade

Sometimes colleagues ask for advice. Here's what I tell them.

I’ve been adding new sections to this newsletter for different styles of writing: Positive Jam, for my writing on the arts and culture; En français, svp, for anything I might end up writing in French; and, as of today, To the Trade, which is where I’ll keep my writing about journalism as a craft, an industry, a slow-motion catastrophe, what have you.

I’ve already populated To The Trade with three short articles of advice to younger journalists. They’re tip sheets I wrote for participants in the Canadian Association of Journalists’ excellent mentorship program. Finding mentors used to be easier, when newsrooms were bigger. Since I didn’t study journalism formally, I got everything I know from colleagues, including older journalists who took the time to share tips. So when I’m able, I take the CAJ’s invitation to pay it forward to younger reporters.

The three short pieces I published today are discussions of technique rather than meditations on ethics, workplace politics or other worthy topics. On other days, I may indulge those loftier discussions. In the meantime, I’m not sure it’s always obvious to younger journalists how they’re supposed to execute the basics of the craft. So I sometimes think that’s where I can be most helpful, if at all.

Here are the three tip sheets:

Everything I know about interview technique

Everything I know about structuring a feature

Everything I know about developing your voice

Paywall’s down for this, so you can share it to the young journalist in your life…

…though if you’re glad I wrote it, you are always free to make the leap and become a paid subscriber:

Later this week I’ll be sending subscribers a substantial essay about the state of our politics, followed by morning-after thoughts on the Ontario election. And maybe some other stuff too. I’m grateful, as always, for your time and attention.